ELECTORATE MAP

2012 ELECTION RESULTS

DEMOGRAPHICS

The inner southern Brisbane seat of Yeerongpilly was among the 43 seats gained by the Liberal National Party in 2012, but it dropped out of the party fold the following November when member Carl Judge quit the party. Judge sat as an independent briefly before joining the Palmer United Party the following April, together with Gaven MP Alex Douglas. It was announced in March 2014 that he would run for the party as its candidate for Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie’s seat of Kawana, located in Palmer United’s stronghold of the Sunshine Coast. However, he parted from the party the following October and announced he would attempt to retain Yeerongpilly as an independent. The breach was evidently less acrimonious than that which had caused Douglas to quit the previous August, with Judge saying he was still friendly with Palmer.

Yeerongpilly covers suburbs about six kilometres south of central Brisbane, from Fairfield and Annerley south to Salisbury. It was created in 2001 in place of abolished Yeronga, which was held by the Liberals from its creation in 1950 until Matt Foley won it for Labor in 1989. Foley secured Labor’s hold on Yeronga with a swing of 7.9% in 1998, and picked up an 8.7% swing in Yeerongpilly in 2001. He retired at the 2004 election and was succeeded by Simon Finn, a Left faction member who served in cabinet in the final year of the Bligh government. Carl Judge came to the seat in 2012 from a background as a detective specialising in child protection.

Labor’s new candidate is Mark Bailey, who was a policy adviser in the Bligh government and a Brisbane City councillor for Moorooka ward from 1994 to 2003. The Liberal National Party candidate is Leila Abukar, a Somali-born community advocate who came to Australia as a refugee at 19 after fleeing her native country amid violence that claimed the lives of her father and brother.

Corrections, complaints and feedback to William Bowe at pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.